A Final Plea
by EpsilonPax
Summary: Post-DOTM; Annabelle grapples with the loss of Ironhide and tries to make a last, desperate plea to Optimus to use the Matrix to bring her guardian back.


**A/N: Set post-DOTM. A brief one-shot between Annabelle (who is, yet again, older here than she would have been in the movie-verse) and Optimus. This has been haunting my computer since DOTM first came out, and after rummaging around and unearthing it again, I decided to let it come out and play awhile. :)  
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**Please R&R! **

**~~~ Epsilon Pax & Bumbee**

Both her mother and father had told her to wait. Be patient. She knew their insistence was because they both wanted to be with her when she walked into the next room. Not to show support for her, but to ensure she didn't say or do anything stupid. But Annabelle was done waiting. Behind her, both her parents lingered half a room away, while Annabelle lingered a spare hand span from the glass double doors. Her fingertips ghosted over the metal door handles in impatience as her anger, frustration and determination swirled to a dangerous and potent cacophony. Both of her parents conversed in sharp staccato tones with yet another government bureaucrat—Annabelle hadn't recognized the blonde woman, and didn't care to—hearing the ire in her father's voice only served as the whet-stone to the keen edge of her own temper. Just because no one else was willing to try, didn't mean that she wasn't brave enough to! She would make him listen! She would make him try! It was the least that he could do!

Annabelle had never been to this satellite N.E.S.T base; it had the air of being both new and impromptu. White washed catwalks crossed the two-story hanger—the hanger just beyond the glass doors Annabelle felt pinned behind—haphazardly. She had scarcely been there half a day and already Annabelle missed the familiarity of N.E.S.T's complex in Diego Garcia. But this new, uncharted territory for her wasn't going to stop her. Not now. She tossed a smoldering glare over her shoulder, and seeing her parents still waylaid by the bureaucrat, Annabelle decided she had been patient enough. With a huff she pressed her heated palms against the cool glass and shoved her way across the threshold into the hanger beyond.

Intent on her goal, a fiery tirade already beginning to swell within her chest, Annabelle comparatively charged down one of the narrow catwalks. She couldn't see him yet, not with the latter half of the corridor so obscured by low hanging machinery and piping, but she knew he was there. If she had to scream herself horse she would. If she had to beat her frail fists against the mountain of living metal she would. There wasn't a damn thing that was going to get in her way! She would do whatever she had to bring him back. She was going to find a way, anyway, to bring back her Ironhide! Her friend, her protector, her guardian…Any tears she might have shed then were burned away by the heat of her temper. The fact that he hadn't even tried to use the Matrix to bring Ironhide back twisted her stomach into countless knots.

Having done an impressive job of working herself into a fury, Annabelle ducked beneath the last obstructing pipe ready to launch the first damning curse she could think of. But that was when she caught sight of him, and her balloon of anger was popped into nothingness; it evaporated as if it had never been there. No longer radiating borderline hatred, Annabelle moved gingerly to the edge of the catwalk, her numb fingers gripping the rail. She had known Optimus Prime since she had been a little girl. She had grown up listening to the rich timber, imparting words of encouragement and wisdom. That noble countenance, along with so many others, had been etched into her memory as a perpetual, inexhaustible source and symbol of strength, courage, and fierce loyalty. But now…

His whole frame seemed to be twisted and blackened, that proud countenance tilted earthward on shoulders that bowed under a great strain. His shoulder…what had happened to his arm? Annabelle hiccupped down fresh tears that nipped at the backs of her eyes as she took in the sight of what was left of the joint. And it hit her then, as she surveyed the destruction before her, the pain wracked form and the dimmed optics that once, not so long ago, burn brightly. One word swam to the forefront of her mind: defeat. He looked completely, and utterly defeated.

"Optimus…?"

Nothing. No response, not a flicker of movement from the being that listlessly sat upon the lowered dias. Annabelle's voice began to waver as she tried again.

"Optimus…?"

He had always answered her, always. Before he had never hesitated, had always heard her. Now she felt as if her words were being drowned amongst the ocean of his thoughts. Nothing.

Annabelle hiccupped again, "Please?"

Slowly, at long last he shifted, just enough to regard her. Even then, his gaze settled upon her as if he were looking at her from a great distance. And in those first moments, Annabelle's fear that he didn't recognize her was true as he looked at her blankly, his expression unchanging.

"Optimus…It's me…" Inwardly, Annabelle cringed, her stomach twisting into nervous knots. She felt the weight of that gaze, and more importantly she felt the emptiness there. He blinked slowly, and again a chill surged through her: he truly didn't recognize her. In that moment, Annabelle's perspective shifted drastically, she no longer saw him as Optimus, the one whom she had known her entire life, who had allowed her to clamber into his palm and who had allowed her to perch on his wide shoulder. No, in that moment she saw him as Optimus Prime, an ancient and powerful being, a living weapon who could level the whole base with a token amount of force. But then, just as she began to shuffle backward, away from the titanic and alien being, he spoke.

"Little one…" Both her ears and her memory heard him. Ever since she was a little girl, he had called her that. His optics shifted as he studied her, perhaps finally seeing her since she had walked into the hanger. There, a flicker of recognition in his optics, "Little…one…"He annunciated carefully. With effort he lifted his frame from the dias, and walked towards her. She could hear his servos straining and gears rattling in protest as he moved. When he lifted his one remaining arm enough to allow him to carefully grip the same thin rail she did, each movement seemed to be a great, and painful effort on his part. Immediately Annabelle pressed her hands against the cool and wide panels of the back of his hand, far more scarred and scraped than she ever remembered it.

Her bottom lip quivered, "About Ironhide…"

Optimus bowed his head, "I am sorry, little one."

It hit her then; her Ironhide, her protector, her friend was truly and irrevocably gone. Gone. The word held a terrible and terrifying finality. Gone.


End file.
